Join us as state Democratic and Republican party officials attempt to resolve a dispute over Chester County's 156th legislative district - a seat that will decide control of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

Monday, November 27, 2006

They're done for the day

The official counting of all the absentee ballots will begin tomorrow at 10 a.m. for the 167th District. The Smith-Royer race could follow.

Today, the crew focused on transferring military and citizen overseas ballots onto the sheets of paper that can be scanned into the voting machines. This involved a bunch of lawyers, observers and county government workers sitting in a room, reading the votes of each individual ballot as they were recorded on the optical scan sheets.

From this, Democrats extrapolated that Smith had picked up 7 votes, which means she appears to be trailing Royer by 12 votes now instead of 19 votes. Just to be clear: this is an entirely unofficial accounting. Media were not allowed in the room because, county officials say, the count is not official. Got that?

The bottom line is "the trend is positive for Democrats," said Bill Patton, the party's spokesman.

The Republicans did not provide their own numbers. Al Bowman, the Republican spokesman, downplayed the trend from the overseas ballots.

Just heard that the Ds filed an election contest in court today alleging fraud. But they don't even know if they won or not? This is the political version of the Hail Mary but DeWeese is no Doug Flutie.

Julius -Formally, in order to contest the election, a candidate needs to file within 20 days of the election itself. While there is a five-day period after the "final" count is certified to file a differnt complaint, that doesn't allow for much time to crunch numbers. The Smith campaign (and, I believe, the Crowley camp) filed the papers in order to reserve the right to contest the election, and have plenty of time to assess the numbers. If things swing their way, they can always withdraw the filing.

About Me

Carrie Budoff is the Pennsylvania political reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She is blogging about the 156th legislative race until the outcome - and the balance of power in the state House of Representatives - is determined.